Goyle: Nocturnal Activities
by chilly-a
Summary: What's the next best thing if you can't do as your neighbours do in the long, dreary hours before dawn? A short piece following Goyle out of the Slytherin dorm, and about...
1. i

disclaimer: characters created by JK Rowling.  
a/n: Though we know what idiots are, we know not what they may be.   
  
  


* * *

  
  
**Goyle: Nocturnal Activites**  
  
  


** ...2:17am**  
  


_Twenty-thousand-three-hundred and four. Twenty-thousand-three-hundred and five. Twenty-thousand, three-hundred and six. Twenty-thousand, three-hundred and,_ uh, _six. Twenty-thousand-three-hundred and seven..._

Sheep taste bad. 

Ma roasts them sometimes at home, mutton. It's supposed to be some kind of delicacy. It stinks. They're the only meat I don't like. Some nights, I count chicken instead. Or cows. But then, that makes me kind of hungry, and that's no good. Not that sheep are any good. I only do them because I can't remember the word in the sleeping spell. 

Somnackety. Or   
Somnificus. 

Somnicoolocoos... Something like that. 

I wrote it down somewhere. I just can't remember where. 

Crabbe is snoring as usual. He never has trouble falling asleep. The next bed down, Draco is sleeping, too. I guess everybody is sleeping right now. It must be really good to be sleeping now. It's raining hard. Though it's warm in the dormitary, I can hear it overhead through the walls. I don't like rain. 

I'm awake like this just about every night. 

Once, in History of Magic class, we read about a wizard, Rotundo Griddlewarf, who got mad a leprechaun king and got himself cursed with the Insomnia Curse and couldn't sleep at night for forty-seven years until he went crazy and died, his eyeballs shrivelled dry in their sockets. He's the only other one I know about, though. I hope I don't die. I don't know what happened to me. I don't think I was cursed. 

I don't remember that happening. And I've been counting sheep since as far back as I remember. I don't think I've met any leprechauns either. Though maybe Pa did it. He's always saying what an ugly baby I was and how, just looking at me, he wanted to bash me or something. It couldn't have been Pa, though. Curses are even more complicated than spells, and Pa has trouble remembering words, too. 

It's still raining outside. 

_Twenty-thousand-three-hundred-and-seven_... That's eighty-one-thousand, two hundred and twenty-eight mutton chops.  
  
  


** ...**  
  


I guess I'm going to have to go see The Albertus. I haven't been in a week. Not because I didn't want to go see him, or because the sheep have been working this week, but because I haven't figured out that last problem he gave me yet. 

The Albertus' going to say I'm stupid, again. 

I guess it's true. I'm not too bright. I have trouble with a lot of things. If I go see him, though, he'll show me the answer. 

The Albertus is pretty smart. Like Draco.   
  
  


** ...**  
  


I feel for my robes and climb out of my bunk. It's dark. I can't find my left shoe. I can never find my left shoe. Crabbe probably hid it again. The arsehole, I get him in the back with my right shoe. He doesn't even roll over. No one wakes up. I grope past Crabbe's bed, then Draco's, to the door. 

The Common Room is dark, too. I think I brought back some cookies from dinner yesterday. I stashed them away so Crabbe couldn't find them. I can't remember now where I put them. I head on. Across the Common Room, there's a passageway and then the stairs out of the dungeon. 

Out of the dungeons, I try to be as quiet as possible. 

I have to concentrate hard because the castle is really confusing. Especially at night time. All the corridors are black and they all move or something. The stone floors always make my toes cold through the socks, too. There're a lot of rights and lefts and downs and ups. Half lefts. Three-quarter rights. I'm not good with things like that. Sometimes it takes a long time to find the way. 

It's bad when I get lost. 

Once, I found this entire hall filled with rooms packed with bottles stuffed with little dead dogs. I guess I didn't find it. I got lost and ended up there, and I tried to find my way out, and all along the hall, every door I opened it was the same, all these dogs, floating in glass bottles, like pickles. That was pretty bad. I don't know, Hogwarts is filled with loons. 

Sometimes it's better just to stay in bed and stick with sheep. 

But I don't get lost so much anymore. I just have to go along really slowly and stop, now and then, to think. My feet get kind of numb. 

I always feel hungry, too. I wish I had those cookies with me. I guess if I was smarter I would have brought them along, because I would have remembered where I hid them. Though Crabbe probably ate them anyway. That arsehole.   
  
  
  



	2. ii

Goyle: Nocturnal Activites  
by chilly_a  
  
  
  
  


** ...3:04am**  
  


The cobwebs are still hanging from the ceiling. I get them all over my head again. I've made a little light with my wand, and I can see my footprints in the dust, from last time. The dust's just starting to cover them up again. The dust always makes me sneeze. The classroom is really small, and dusty. I guess no one's really used it for anything for quite a while. The Albertus hangs, like always, on the far wall. 

He always knows when I'm here. 

"So. You, again. Trouble sleeping?" 

I shuffle a bit.   
"Uh.. yeah," I say. 

"That last problem was trivial. How long did it take you to solve it?" 

I scuff at the dust. "Uh..." 

It's hard not to shuffle when The Albertus' talking to you. He has a really clever kind of voice. Like if you're too dumb, he's going to be really angry. Like he's not going to want to bother with people who can't figure out his problems. 

"Well? What? You did figure it out, didn't you?" 

"Uh..." I scratch my head. I shuffle. "No..." 

"My god," The Albertus seems to be growing, stretching in the gloom."You're stupid." 

I try not to scowl. I don't know how The Albertus always seems to be growing bigger, and angrier, because he takes up the entire wall already, so I don't think he can really move. But then he talks, too, and he's a blackboard. 

"You're not only stupid. You're _very_ stupid." 

I scowl at him. 

"Do you know how _stupid_ you are?" 

I sneeze. 

"Has anyone ever told you how stupid you are?" 

Dust is getting into my socks through the holes. I hate dust. And I hate having cold, dusty toes. 

"_Well?_" 

"Yeah," I scowl. 

"What?" 

I didn't ask to be born stupid. People say I take after Pa. 

And I think they're right, because though Pa's always cursing at me I think he's pretty stupid himself, and, come to think of it, Ma also has problems with plenty of things. I don't think she could solve The Albertus' problems in a week, either. 

"Well, what are you doing scowling, looking stupid? Get over here, retard! Pick up the chalk."   
  
  
  



	3. iii

Goyle: Nocturnal Activites  
by chilly_a  
  
  
  
  


** ...5:49am**  
  


The Albertus is covered with lines and squiggles and numbers. It looks kind of pretty. I like making all the little circles and dots and little funny arrows. I like how each line of numbers breaks up into a new line, and then another, then another, until you get to the very bottom and it's still the same thing, only you're at the bottom of it. Then you can start again at the top. And then you cross it, or wiggle it. Double squiggle it. Blow it up. I like the way the chalk squeaks when I squiggle out numbers. Some of the squiggling takes a little longer to make sense, so usually The Albertus has to explain a lot before I understand, and then he gets angry. But it's not so bad. 

It's almost as good as being asleep. I just do everything slowly. I think hard. And I write hard.  
  
  


** ...**  
  


"Alright. Well, that's enough. You'd better get going." 

I blink. 

Sometimes I forget I have to stop when I'm writing on The Albertus. 

I kind of forget where I am. I forget about the old classroom. The cobwebs. The dark. About my nose itching, and the dust, and about school and Hogwarts. About having to creep back to the dungeon before the others wake up. But then I remember and it makes me all cranky. 

I remember all the doorways, floors and walls and long, moving corridors. I remember how it'll still be all black. How I'll still be cold, and hungry. And it'll still be raining when I get back to the dorm. And Crabbe will probably still be snoring on his side. And my neck will be all cranked like usual and my eyes'll be all squinty again, because I haven't closed them all night. And Draco will say I'm ugly. Then all the pansies will be sprouting outside in the morning. And they'll probably have something revolting like porridge for breakfast. 

Maybe Draco will let me copy his Transfiguration homework, at least. 

"The next time you come, I want the proof for this, here. Understand?" 

I peer at the board.   
I scratch my head. That looks pretty hard. 

"It's trivial and I expect a solution, you moron!" 

I shuffle, crossly. 

"Don't even think of coming back to me until you've solved it, do you hear?" 

I scowl. 

"What?" 

I blow my nose on my sleeve. "Yeah," I grumble. 

"Unless you're stupid." 

I hate blackboards. 

"Unless you couldn't work it out if you thought about it for a year. Then you might as well come back and learn how it's done. Are you stupid?" 

I scowl at The Albertus, and blink. "Uh... yeah." 

"Well, what are you doing scowling? Get out of here! Honestly. I don't know why I _bother_ with you."  
  
  


** ...**  
  


Sometimes I wonder if I am the most stupid person in the world. If I was smarter, I don't think I'd be crouching outside The Albertus' door, like I am now, because I can't remember the spell to put out the light on my wand, so I can't start heading back, because Filch or someone will see and catch me and give me detention. It takes me a while, sometimes. I don't know. I guess if I was really smart, I also wouldn't be crouching here because I would have remembered the word for that sleeping spell, anyway, and I'd be in bed right now, dreaming of roast chicken and beef. Somnicubicle, or something. _Somnocannypous._

It's like this, almost every night. 

But I don't know, who knows? Maybe I'll end up like Rotundo Griddlewarf, go loony, and just die, maybe before Transfiguration, so McGonagall won't get to expel me from the class again, today. Maybe they'll have bacon at breakfast. Maybe it's stopped raining. Maybe I'll figure out The Albertus' problem this time, it's happened before. I hope I don't die, though. 

Crabbe would probably get all my robes and my shoes. That's what he's always wanted, that arsehole.  
  
  
  


** end**  
  
  



End file.
